We have entered the month of melting March. Our single digits have changed to 30s, 40s and tomorrow into the 50s. It is a welcome sight to see all the snow melt and to be able to go outside without bundling up. It will be interesting to see how long it takes our mountains of snow piled up near our apartment to melt to a pile of road dirt.
This past week has been especially fun as we got together with all the senior missionaries in the entire mission. Our eastern and western comrades were either flown in, or they drove in to Montreal for a special devotional with our Area Presidency. The mission here is growing fast with so many baptisms but also losing some of those same new members in their first few months. Canada is one region now and the leadership are looking at the entire country with a new plan to retain new members and revive less-active ones. The stake presidents from all over the mission were zoomed in to our meeting as the new plan involves them greatly. As it was explained to us, there will be a greater emphasis on calling stay-at-home seniors to serve in their own local areas, but not in their own units. They are putting together a better framework of training and focus on just what the duties of senior missionaries like us are to be. Canada is piloting this plan, and I expect it may go churchwide at some point at least in some areas. It also may help compensate for the lack of new senior MLS missionaries like us.
In the pictures shared here, are some of our senior couples helping us put together some sandwiches in the kitchen as well as our picture of everyone in front of the temple just before we went in to do a session just for our group alone. Out of this group four couples are going home in the next two to three months, and none will be replaced, just as we will not be replaced. With 55 new missions opening this summer there is a great need to staff the offices and not enough seniors to replace all of us MLS missionaries. Our mission president, Pres. Sorensen is on the left with the Area Presidency, Pres. Vern P. Stanfill, D. Martin Goury, and James E. Evanson.
We have been busy arranging for a few of our members to prepare for their own temple endowments and also for some of our newest members to go to the temple for baptisms. In our devotional we were reminded of how thousands of people joined the church in the book of Helaman just before Christ’s coming to the Americas. And, how Ammon and his brothers helped to convert so many who “never did fall away”. We are seeing that kind of growth today. Pres. Stanfill shared with us that the most difficult time for new members is 2-3 months after baptism. Satan works hard to discourage and distract them at this vulnerable time. We have seen this happen here as new converts suddenly are forced by their employers to work on Sundays or family members pressure them against the church with false information.
The key to strengthening these new faithful souls is to get them to the temple as soon as they can. The Montreal temple is a small temple that is only open for two and a half days and one extra evening per week. It is usually very full, and baptism dates are hard to schedule. We finally got a date for this month with our newest member and a few other recent members. Pres. Stanfill quoted from D & C 29 about how a hen gathers her chicks. We are the wings that need to gather, protect, and nourish these new converts.
Au revoir,
The Glenns